Suburban woman makes pancake portraits of celebrities
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Since sifting through dull newspapers, hyperbolic blogs, and overflowing RSS feeds for meaningful news can be an arduous process, News Net catches and compiles both the amusing and the significant reports that were overlooked throughout the weekend. Here are some things to think about as the work week begins.
• Artist Katherine Kalnes from LaGrange, Illinois has used her creative talents to create four celebrity portraits with pancakes. She used Batter Blaster, which is pancake batter in a spray bottle, to create some tasty renditions of Justin Bieber, Ellen Degeneres, Kelly Ripa, and an especially striking portrait of Stephen Colbert mounted upon a bald eagle with American flag-patterned wings. Upon learning of Kalnes’ artwork, Bieberholics immediately descended and devoured the pancake pop singer, then immediately regretted it and weeped for hours until someone told them the pancake wasn’t really Justin Bieber.
• A large chunk of the extra money intended for sewer and water line repairs collected from increased water bills will, gasp, not be used for sewer and water line repairs. Mick Dumke and Ben Joravksy of the Chicago Reader recently broke down Emanuel’s plan to phase in a 70 percent increase in sewer and water rates over the next four years, highlighting some of the more murky and unclear allocations of money supposedly intended for water and sewer improvements. Included is a confusing amount of money going toward water department employees’ benefits, along with hundreds of millions being directed toward unspecified “other purposes.” This isn’t a new game in Chicago. Mayor Daley did something similar in 2007, when he urged the City Council to approve a hike of 45 percent over three years, which it did. If the mayor’s budget passes, Chicago residents can expect to pay about $823 million in water and sewer fees next year. And by 2015, city residents will be paying about two-and-a-half times the water and sewer fees they were paying in 2007.
• A 3-foot-long copper sword was discovered to be missing from Abraham Lincoln’s Tomb in Springfield last week. The State Journal-Register reported Saturday an employee noticed the sword was cut from a statue of a Civil War artillery officer. Officials believe the sword was stolen sometime between September and early November. This is the first time in more than 100 years something has been stolen from Honest Abe’s final resting place. Interestingly enough, the previous stolen item was a bronze sword from the same statue. It has been reported that Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage are currently in talks to adapt this story into a multimillion-dollar box office dog turd.
• Metra is jacking up its rates and implementing some frugal new fare policies to not to anger and alienate everyone, but rather to save our infrastructure, says Metra spokesman Michael Gillis. One-way tickets will soon go up more than 15.7 percent across all fare zones, and 10-ride tickets and monthly passes will jump a whopping 30 percent. This is first rate hike since 2008, and the largest single fare increase in the Chicago-area commuter rail agency’s history. New policies include one-way tickets remaining valid for 14 days instead of a year and the elimination of young adult fares on weekends and holidays. On the bright side, there should be a noticeably sharp decline in the number of jovial suburban tweens running amok in Chicago on weekends.
• A University Of Illinois football player and two Chicago Suburb residents were shot Sunday morning at a party near the University of Illinois campus. The Urbana Police Department said the incident occurred at 3 a.m. Sunday morning when an individual “fired several rounds from a handgun into a crowded patio area.” The shooter fled the scene and is still at large. Illini linebacker Trulon Henry was shot in the hand and underwent surgery. One of the other victims, a man from Park Forest, was treated and released. The police did not have the condition of the third man.
